| Perplexed Labs Blog: PHP Forking to Concurrency with pcntl_fork() |
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On the Perplexed Labs blog there's a recent post looking at how to fork processes in PHP with the help of the pcntl_fork function and the process management extension.
Let's say you want to take advantage of more than one core for a given process. Perhaps it performs many intensive computations and on a single core would take an hour to run. Since a PHP process is single threaded you won't optimally take advantage of the available multi-core resources you may have. Fortunately, via the Process Control (PCNTL) extension, PHP provides a way to fork new child processes.
He gives a quick snippet of code showing how to spawn off a few new processes, get their process IDs and watches a max number of children until one dies (then starts another).
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| Community News: Microsoft Returns with The Ultimate Coder Battle |
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Microsoft is back with another round of their Ultimate Coder Battle for Canadian developers wanting to create Windows-based PHP applications for some great prizes (like a Dell computer makeover or a Dell notebook).
Now's your chance to put those skills to the test, going toe-to-toe with Canada's best and brightest web developers during the FTW! Coding Competition. Choose your weapon...ahem...language and platform to develop the next great Canadian Web App. Walk ten paces, turn, and?dazzle the country with your incredible new app!
You can get the full details about the competition from the FTW Coding Competition site including information on the rules, what kind of platform your application needs to run on and what kind of data it needs to use. The deadline for signups is April 20th, 2010 so get those ideas in and get started developing!
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| Webitech.net: Create an Impressive Content Editing System with jQuery and PHP |
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On Webitech.net there's a new tutorial showing how to combine PHP and jQuery to create a simple content editing system when you don't need a full-blown CMS to manage the pages of your site.
I'm going to show you how to use jQuery and PHP to build a content editing system that will allow you or your client to easily edit .html pages visually. [...] Our file structure is going to be really simple - just admin.php, the wymeditor package and jquery together in the demo directory.
The tool uses PHP's file_get_contents to pull in the source of the page into a textarea and edit it with jQuery and the WYM Editor. Full code is included for your cut and paste pleasure but if you need a quicker fix, you can download the source. There's also a demo to see it in action.
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| php|architect: It's not all about the code |
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In a recent (quick) post to the php|architect site Koen Van Urk reminds us that it's not all about the code, there's planning to consider too.
Sure, it is important to have your code as bug free as possible, well documented and as optimized as possible. It is, however, impossible to achieve this all without prior planning. Good project coordination.
He suggests one of the most useful and reliable forms of planning and defining the requirements for an application - writing them down on a normal piece of paper. Then from there let the ideas flow with things like look and feel, mapping out page structure, etc. Website planning tools are good, but when it comes down to basic prototyping, sometimes there's just nothing better than a pencil and a few sheets of plain white paper.
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| Brian Swan's Blog: mssql vs. sqlsrv: What's the Difference? (Part 1) |
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In a new post to his blog Brian Swan compares the database drivers for MSSQL and SQLSRV by what they have to offer and what the real differences are to your applications.
In this post I want to begin looking at some of the differences between the two drivers and perhaps gain an understanding of why the mssql driver continues to be used (although I have some good guesses). There are lots of comparison points between the mssql and sqlsrv drivers. I'll break my comparison into two posts, focusing on high-level differences in this post and then dive into an API comparison in the next post.
This first of the two parts looks at some of the differences between the two - the Microsoft support for the sqlsrv driver vs community-driven mssql and the fact that they're very different "under the hood" (see this diagram).
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| Joseph Crawford's Blog: ZF: Creating RESTful Applications |
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Joseph Crawford has a new post to his blog today with a look at his use of the Zend_Rest_Controller and Zend_Rest_Route components of the Zend Framework to create a simple REST service.
You might be asking yourself why do I have to use both components, why is it not rolled into one nice component. The answer is really basic and if you look at the source code for the Zend_Rest_Controller you will see that it is solely an abstract class that defines the methods required for use with the Zend_Rest_Route.
He includes the code to add to your bootstrap file to get the routing working and a sample controller (MyController) that extends the Zend_Rest_Controller and sets up some basic actions - get, put, post and delete. He does mention one issue he's coming across in a feature he's wanting to add - putting the version number of the API in the URL for easier separation.
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| CMStr.com: How to manually install Joomla 1.5+ |
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From CMStr.com there's a new tutorial showing you how to set up Joomla manually just in case something happens with the install and you need to change things yourself.
Why would I want to do a manual install when my web host has this Fantastico thingy that will install Joomla for me? Good question. [...] If you are building websites for a living, and or plan on using Joomla a lot, then you really need to start doing your own installs. [...] If you are an experienced parachute jumper, you would pack your own chute right? This is no different.
Screenshots are included to help make the process easier as they walk you through setting up the basics like language settings and database information. They also touch on the FTP setting (off for security) and removing the admin user's information to help make things a bit more secure. It's not a comprehensive list of the things you'd need to do to get it 100% configured for just what you need, but it's a start.
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| Kavoir.com: Just Hashing is Far from Enough for Storing Passwords (Dictionary & Rainbow Attacks) |
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On Kavoir.com there's a new post that reminds you that hashing isn't enough anymore to protect your users and their passwords. They offer a suggestion or two of what you can do to help lock things down a bit more.
The common practice is to hash the user password and store the hash string of the password in the database. When the user tries to log in and supplies his password, it is used to generate a hash string to be compared to the one stored in the database. [...] This approach may be secure in the 70s of the last century, but barely any more.
Computing has evolved enough to where hashed can be matched, sometimes in less than two or three minutes. Their answer to the problem? Generate a random salt each time you create the hash with a constant being used as a base. A code snippet calling a user-defined function and the sha1 function are included.
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| Brandon Savage's Blog: Upgrades In Open Source |
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Brandon Savage has posted his own response to the "don't be afraid of the upgrade" thread that's been going around concerning updating to PHP 5.3. He takes a different approach to the matter, though - one of a bit more caution.
When it comes to open source projects endorsing PHP 5.3 as their one and only PHP platform, I encourage caution. When it comes to open source projects that use PHP, there are three main issues that I believe should be considered before making the leap to PHP 5.3 (or any new release of any new software).
He sees three considerations projects and companies should consider before making the upgrade on their servers - the amount of control you have over the environment, deciding if the upgrade is worth possible backwards compatibility breaks and how much support you want to still provide for the pre-5.3 version(s).
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| PHPClasses.org Blog: Neural Networks in PHP |
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New on the PHPClasses.org blog there's an article on neural networks written up by Louis Stowasser looking specifically at creating a neural mesh with PHP.
Neural networks are a relatively new technology that aims to reverse engineer the functionality of the brain within a mathematics model. This may sound daunting and complex but the underlying concepts are very simple and Neural Mesh does the hard work for you. In a Web environment NNs (neural networks) are considered too slow and complex to warrant effort on what might even be a trivial task. To solve this, Neural Mesh has been heavily optimized. It uses caching to speed up running and training of networks.
He explains what a neural network is on a base level and talks about it's ability to learn from the training its given (supervised or unsupervised). He also talks about how the networks can be useful and how to use the framework (found here) to create a simple network.
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| Zend Developer Zone: Creating Scalable Vector Graphs with PHP |
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A new tutorial has been posted to the Zend Developer Zone today looking at making scalable vector graphics with PHP and the hep of one of two charting packages - ezcGraph or SVGGraph (examples are provided for both).
Programmatically generating graphs and charts using SVG requires a deep understanding of the SVG specification and the various SVG primitives, as well as a fair amount of time for research, experimentation and debugging. Or, in other words, that's your entire weekend shot! Fortunately, help is at hand. There are a number of open-source PHP libraries that support SVG chart generation, and using them can significantly reduce the amount of work involved in adding this feature to a Web application.
He shows how to create simple images like bar, line and pie charts as well as adding in other things like a legend, custom titles and a sample where the user can define the sizes of a pie chart via some form input fields. Screenshots are included for all code examples to give you a better idea of the end result.
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| php|architect: Static methods vs singletons: choose neither |
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On the php|architect site there's a recent post that splits apart the singletons versus static methods debate that seems to com up every once and a while with a better suggestion - dependency injection.
Much more important than performance is the fact that both static methods and singletons suffer from major drawbacks. When it comes to deciding between the two, you might forgo the benchmark comparison and choose the third-party candidate: dependency injection.
He mentions the "dark side" of both static methods and singletons and how dependency injection can help rid your code of both. Instead of focusing just on the benchmark numbers, DI helps you keep your code more well-structured and "smarter" by scoping things to where they need to be and making them easier to test.
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| DZone.com: Q&A with Jason Gilmore: The Zend Framework |
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On DZone.com today there's a new interview by Lyndsey Clevesy with Jason Gilmore looking at the Zend Framework and some of the general things to expect in coming versions.
This week's DZone Refcard is about Getting Started with the Zend Framework. The card introduces you to the basics of the Zend Framework and sets you on the path to creating your first project. I met the author, Jason Gilmore, to find out more about the topic.
They talk about some of what the framework currently has to offer developers, what kind of involvement he's had with it, who it supports as far as advanced PHP features and what's to come in version 2.0. The Zend Framework RefCard mentioned can be viewed or downloaded here - a six-page quick reference for some of the more common Zend Framework tasks.
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| Alvaro Videla's Blog: Erlang as a Fast Key Value Store for PHP |
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Alvaro Videla has submitted a new post he's written up combining PHP and Erlang yet again, but this time he's using it to just store key/value pairs rather than for session data.
In this post I want to show you some of the neat things that can be done with the PHP-Erlang Bridge extension: A Key Value Store. Erlang comes packed with a Key Value store in the form of the ETS module. This is database is pretty fast and efficient for storing the Erlang terms in memory.
He tried a proof of concept to see how well the system would respond and was able to push over 150k items into the storage in one second. Sample code and instructions on getting the bridge working are included in the post.
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| Template Monster Blog: It's coming! WordPress 3.0 - Pros and Cons |
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On the Template Monster blog there's a recent post looking at some of the upcoming features in WordPress 3.0 that many WordPress site owners have eagerly been waiting for.
Alright bloggers, web surfers and simple web enthusiasts, we've got some fascinating news for you all. Yes, Internet community can't stop buzzing about the forthcoming release of the new version of #1 blogging software '" WordPress 3.0. [...] The official release is scheduled for May 2010 but now we have opportunity to mark the major advantages that this release will bring.
They list a few of the major enhancements that'll happen in the new release including:
a built-in multi-user option
custom post types
a new default design/theme
and changes related to security concerns
You can find out more about this upcoming release from this post to the man WordPress blog.
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| Matt Butche's Blog: MongoDB: 5 Things Every PHP Developer Should Know About MongoDB |
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Matt Butcher has a new post to his blog today with five things that every PHP developer should know about MongoDB, the popular NoSQL database project.
2010 is the year of the document database. While momentum has been steadily building over the last seven years or so, there are now a wide variety of stable document databases -- from cloud-based ones from Amazon and Google, to a wide variety of Open Source tools, most notably CouchDB and MongoDB. So what is MongoDB? Here are five things every PHP developer should know about it.
He points out a few things - that MongoDB is a stand-alone server, that it's schemaless, you won't need to learn another query language to use it and that PHP and MongoDB play very well together (thanks to the Mongo PECL package already released).
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| Zend Developer Zone: Do you queue? Introduction to the Zend Server Job Queue |
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On the Zend Developer Zone today there's a new post (technically a repost) of an article from Kevin Schroeder about using the job queue in the Zend Server software to enhance the functionality of your application.
When talking about building a scalable application there is a big concept out there that many PHP developers are not overly familiar with. That concept is queuing. It is becoming much more prevalent in PHP-land but the concept of a queue is still relatively unused among PHP developers. [...] Queuing a job is actually very easy to do. A job is run by calling a URL where that job resides. The Job Queue daemon will receive the request from your application and will then call the URL that you specified in the API call. Once you call that URL your application can continue going on its merry way to finish serving up the request.
He includes some code snippets showing how to create the request - in this case a simple call that will just email when the job is preformed. There's more than one way to do it and he includes a more well structured/less scripty way to do things in an abstract class.
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| Brian Swan's Blog: Best PHP Projects on Codeplex? |
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Brian Swan has a new post to his MSDN blog today with links to a few good PHP-based CodePlex projects that he thinks look pretty useful for the development community out there.
Admittedly, I'm interested in some of these projects [tagged with PHP] purely out of curiosity, but some of them actually look useful. I won't claim that these are the best of the PHP projects on Codeplex (hence the question mark in the title), but here are some that piqued my interest and that I plan to check out.
The projects in his list are include PHP LINQ classes, Virtual Earth integration and the Zend Framework DB adapter for Microsoft SQL Native Client. |
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